]]>By Megan Schwarz.Seed to SerumPhotos courtesy of The Little Alchemist.

The Little Alchemist marries natural, organic ingredients with the latest anti-aging actives. These actives include fascinating complexes like Cohellis Bio, a vegetable-based Botox alternative, D’Orientine S, a wrinkle-fighter derived from dates, and Colhibin, a rice protein that boosts collagen. The Little Alchemist clearly wants to be known for more than just natural. This is anti-aging skincare at its most evolved.

Here are a few of my favorites from the line…

My love for the Wild Apple and Mint Gel Cleanser took me completely by surprise. I normally shy away from all things gel, seeking out hydrating milks and creams instead. However, this aloe and clay based, low to no foam cleanser was anything but drying. In fact, it was incredibly nourishing. Most importantly, it’s FANTASTIC for acne prone skin. This cleanser contains pineapple, papaya and black willow bark extracts to exfoliate; turmeric, plantain and calendula to calm and ease inflammation; and wheatgrass to detoxify. This is the type of complex, overachieving ingredient list that you expect from an anti-aging cream, not from a cleanser. That’s where The Little Alchemist goes above and beyond.

The Ultra C Radiance Serum is something else. The rich texture is everything I crave in a serum. And yes, this is definitely a serum. It is practically overflowing with active ingredients – Vitamin C, Co Enzyme Q10, chia seed, acerola fruit, goji berry, rosehip. While the serum is rich, I found it worked great in the mornings and at night. After a few days of consistent use, I can honestly say that I noticed a visible increase in my skin’s clarity. I’m not really surprised though – this serum is quite the powerhouse. If you are looking for a potent serum that works overtime to turn back the clock, pick the Ultra C Radiance Serum up immediately.

The Anti-Aging Defense Complex is my absolute favorite product from the entire line. It is an incredibly light lotion that feels luxe. There are too many natural moisturizers out there that bear more resemblance to a gloppy, watery mess than they do a lotion. Not this one. It feels like a traditional, high-end moisturizer that you might pick up at Barney’s. What’s more, it contains vitamins, antioxidants, and fatty acids that boost collagen and minimize wrinkles. This cream is definitely a winner. I used it at night over the Radiance Serum, but I’m considering picking up a bottle for daytime use when my current moisturizer runs out!

An introduction to The Little Alchemist would not be complete if I didn’t mention the crazy cool packaging. Have you ever seen a line this stylish?! I love it.

]]>http://www.handfulofsalt.com/natural-skincare-evolved/feed/0Big Picture: Babettehttp://www.handfulofsalt.com/babette/
http://www.handfulofsalt.com/babette/#commentsFri, 27 Feb 2015 16:44:00 +0000http://www.handfulofsalt.com/?p=26250We’ve always been enamored by the idea of the maker, that solopreneur (or maybe duopreneur team) that slaves away in their small studio, designing, sweating the cost of supplies, worrying about whether their arms/legs/backs/tempers/marriages will give out before they get … Continue reading →

]]>We’ve always been enamored by the idea of the maker, that solopreneur (or maybe duopreneur team) that slaves away in their small studio, designing, sweating the cost of supplies, worrying about whether their arms/legs/backs/tempers/marriages will give out before they get in that last Christmas order.

And of course, this crowd has gotten a lot of deserving attention (with lots of it coming from our little corner of the digital and print world). But I do wonder whether this attention has turned into a bit of a fetish. Well, that’s another article.

Inside the factory at Babette

What all this lovely focus has done, though, is to take the spotlight off of people I consider to be some of the unsung heroes in this world: those who still are in the business of “making” – much of it by hand – but at scale: the ones who have “factories”, things called supply chains, warehouses, lots of types of people to manage, and possibly multiple outlets to manage. These are the ones committed to keeping things human-scale, not just engineering their businesses for buy out.

Industrial cutter

They’re less romantic, sure, but what they do is truly tough.

Threading the needle

One of those companies is Babette, based in Oakland, CA. They’re best known for their pleated clothing for women (the genius kind that flows with the body but also never loses shape), sold through their own stores (which include accessories and jewelry curated by our good friend and jewelry maven Elizabeth Shypertt) and through stores like Artful Home.

In the workroom at Babette

Just because they operate at scale (with 8 stores and around 150 wholesale accounts) doesn’t mean that their work isn’t incredibly labor intensive.

Pleated detail

Their signature pleated work – which accounts for between and third and a half of their output, is all done at a factory in Oakland, California, not exactly the cheapest place to do it, and not exactly in sweatshop conditions. Because with something this labor intensive and skill / knowledge / experience intensive, it’s all about the talent.

Babette_pleated garments

And it also seems to be about family: Babette has a habit of bringing – and keeping together – families, even husbands and wives, and some have been working there for over 20 years.

Signature Pleating

Hand pleating is a revelation, requiring some pretty specialized skills: a combination of some pretty amazing 3D visualization skills backed up with a great deal of experience. Pleating is the result of taking a piece of fabric, fitting it very carefully against a pattern made of heavy paper, and then “sealing” in the pleat with heat and steam.

The foundation for pleating

The pattern itself is conventional pattern making on steroids. It’s a work of art married with engineering, an intricate 3D sculpture that needs to create both an intriguing surface pattern and provide appealing drape and shape.

Pattern language

So beautiful are the patterns themselves that they’d make beautiful wall hangings or mold for a large tiles.

Pattern detail

Once cut, the pieces are twisted by hand, and then put in an oven of sort where pressure and heat are applied (275 degrees at 20 pounds per square inch) to retain the pleating.

Steaming it up

The pleating master at work

The center of the action is Hong Kong-trained Mr. Leung, the master pleater, who’s been at this for over 40 years. His ability to see, understand, and create shape out of pleats is phenomenal: few architects have the kind of 3D skills that he and his team does.

Pleating: hand and machine

One of the benefits of keeping design together with manufacturing is that manufacturing and design become partners to each other in both the process and design. So accomplished is Leung at the art and craft of pleating that he is, in effect, a co-designer.

Pleating in progress

The force of nature charged with helping keep all this together, not to mention designing 2+ lines a year and sourcing the all-important textiles from all over the world, is Babette Pinsky, who along with her husband Steven, own Babette.

Babette Pinsky (L) at work

FIT-educated, color and art-loving Babette started designing in the late sixties and in the mid 80s began experimenting with pleats, inspired by the late Mary McFadden. She created a pleated raincoart, and instant hit, and she was off and running.

Colors at work

What’s kept her thriving over 3 decades when there’s such road kill in the fashion establishment? Perhaps it’s because has a clear and sophisticated view of who her customer is and what she’s trying to achieve, incredibly rare in an inherently trend-driven and youth-mad industry.

Babette’s having none of it. “My core customer is in her late fifties. She’s educated, arty, politically aware and has expendable income: why should I try to kill myself to go after a younger customer just because everyone else is?”

That kind of knowledge is power. That kind of willingness to understand the perils of growth and sexiness and ego is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

And so is knowing how to bring and keep together the people, resources, and skills to work in an incredibly tough field. The craft of scale is not for the faint hearted but for the few with the grit and talent to make it happen, it’s pretty inspiring to know there are some models out there, whether you’re a solopreneur in your garage or a larger scale manufacturer struggling with how fast – and big – to grow.

]]>http://www.handfulofsalt.com/babette/feed/0Noticed: Silvia Songhttp://www.handfulofsalt.com/noticed-silvia-song/
http://www.handfulofsalt.com/noticed-silvia-song/#commentsFri, 27 Feb 2015 16:16:13 +0000http://www.handfulofsalt.com/?p=26247By Regina M. Connell. I’ve been going through a phase recently where the minimal has been appealing to me a little less. I want things a little more baroque, so to speak (not fully but a little more in that … Continue reading →

I’ve been going through a phase recently where the minimal has been appealing to me a little less. I want things a little more baroque, so to speak (not fully but a little more in that direction), where there’s pattern and ornamentation, signs of obsession and a vibrant personality.

But then I see work like Silvia Song‘s. Maybe, I think, I should stay the minimalist course: that minimal can be moving and interesting. And then I think, maybe, it’s just because she’s so good that her work just throbs with a personality and intensity that come from within, that aren’t constrained by form. It’s far too rare a thing as far as I’m concerned.

Silvia Song’s Indigo Dyed Bowls

San Francisco Bay Area-based Silvia creates exquisitely wrought bowls, vessels, and boards out of wood, calling herself a “wood potter,” and her work has been blowing me away for a while now.

Work from Silvia Song, wood potter

It’s hard for me to decide which piece of hers I’m most drawn to. It might actually be her cutting boards (particularly when stacked atop each other, ziggurat style.) I know they’re functional and not just sculptural, but I can definitely see a trio of cutting boards displayed somewhere far from the kitchen.

But then, there are the bowls she’s created out of maple dipped in indigo with the help of natural-dye specialist Kristine Vejar of A Verb for Keeping Warm. Definitely obsession-worthy and deeply, achingly beautiful in their own right. Perhaps they could be displayed on top of the cutting boards?

The fact that she’s a former architect is clear: her designs are breathtakingly and deceptively simple—perfectly balanced and formed, hinting at classicism but looking utterly modern.

Studio tools

It’s the wood itself that makes you want to touch, touch, touch her pieces. Often made of maple and the rare claro walnut available in Northern California, they’re buttery smooth (the mark of a true artisan), and it’s clear that she sees the grain of the wood as a way to extend and deepen her design. Materials matter here, when the work is so rigorously simple: Song works with a city arborist who emails her photos of felled trees.

Silvia Song

Sylvia’s as passionate, meticulous, and intense about her work as she is gifted—a maker who is as dedicated to the craft as to the design, someone who’s unafraid of experimentation and play.

]]>http://www.handfulofsalt.com/noticed-silvia-song/feed/0The New Luxury: The Culture of Smokinghttp://www.handfulofsalt.com/new-luxury-culture-smoking/
http://www.handfulofsalt.com/new-luxury-culture-smoking/#commentsWed, 25 Feb 2015 00:37:07 +0000http://www.handfulofsalt.com/?p=26262By Regina Connell. It’s no doubt a good thing that smoking is no longer as popular a pastime as it once was. It’s better to live in a world where one can experience the joy of walking into a bar without reeling at the thickness … Continue reading →

It’s no doubt a good thing that smoking is no longer as popular a pastime as it once was. It’s better to live in a world where one can experience the joy of walking into a bar without reeling at the thickness of cigarette smoke. It’s better to not have to wash cigarette smoke out of your hair (let alone deal with the dry cleaning consequences) after sitting in a smoky conference room for hours. (Yes, boys and girls, back in the day, people were allowed to smoke indoors, let alone within 10 feet of a building. Moreover, there really were smoke-filled rooms in which deals were done.) And obviously there are those nagging little issues of death and disease.

But the world is missing something now that many of the culture and rituals associated with smoking are also dying out. The rituals are rich and pleasurable, a boon to the quality of life, and something we need to find a way to reinvent. Without the side effects, of course.

What culture of smoking?

Well, there were the accoutrements, all absolutely perfect outlets for the work of fine artisans. Ashtrays as little sculptures out of clay or metal. Cigarette cases out of fine leathers that became impregnated over time with the smell of tobacco. Boxes for cigarettes (in case a guest didn’t have their own) that called into play the work of fine woodworkers, techniques such as marquetry and intarsia, or lacquer. Lighters and portable ashtrays out of fine metals, perhaps with some etching, chasing, engraving or gilding. Cigarette holders out of jade or bakelite.

What little objet do we have today for the artisan to show off their skills, or for the connoisseur to keep on their persons as small talismen and personal signifiers? Not many, really. We don’t really use pens anymore; wallets are another endangered species in the age of ApplePay. And iPhone holders don’t cut it for me: artisanship doesn’t appear to be in great evidence around those, since most are pretty simple leather affairs with a bit of stitching. It’s unlikely to be that thing you thrust into your pocket to feel, to worry, to calm yourself with during the course of the day. That iPhone holder is never going to be that object that’s indelibly associated with you. It’s quite a loss.

Then there’s the social angle in ciggy culture. Back in the day, all sorts of connections could start out with the bumming of a cigarette. It was a communal kind of thing, a way to engage … but not too deeply. What do we have these days? What small things can you share? Not much, really. Buying a drink for someone in a bar brings a great deal more baggage with it. Share food? Out of the question, with all those food obsessions and allergies (real or imagined) about.

But more than anything it’s the cigarette break that I think is the real loss. Once upon a time, even before laws forced smokers outdoors, people took these little time outs from the day to go and have a smoke. Smokers had license to go and commune with themselves (or with a few others), smoking, thinking, reflecting, just being. Whether occasioned by addiction, habit, or just the understandable wish to free themselves from the shackles of the office or meeting they were in, they had a chance to reconnect with themselves, to process or to zone out, let feelings and thoughts wash over them, to integrate, to savor the moment…

For all the rest and more on our version of the new luxury, wander on over to AltLuxe.

]]>http://www.handfulofsalt.com/new-luxury-culture-smoking/feed/0Lee & Lou: Aileen’s English Cheddar Sconeshttp://www.handfulofsalt.com/lee-lou-aileens-english-cheddar-scones/
http://www.handfulofsalt.com/lee-lou-aileens-english-cheddar-scones/#commentsFri, 20 Feb 2015 16:35:40 +0000http://www.handfulofsalt.com/?p=26230By Lee & Lou Havlicek. Lee & Lou Cook. These scones really are just perfect. Serve them toasty warm all on their own (or with jam and butter) or alongside a meal. They are so quick and easy to … Continue reading →

These scones really are just perfect. Serve them toasty warm all on their own (or with jam and butter) or alongside a meal. They are so quick and easy to make, they may just become a staple in your house.

You’ll notice there’s something unexpected in the ingredients list: a touch of dry mustard. Instead of a bringing a pronounced mustard flavor to the scones, it lends a background flavor that brings out the cheddar-y goodness of the cheese. It’s genius.

We’ve made these scones for all sorts of days and all sorts of meals: breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snow day snacks, as the foundation for a killer breakfast sandwich, and as the companion to a piping hot bowl of soup…

For the rest of the post, the recipe, and oh so much more Lee & Lou click here.

Beautiful snow covered trees and decadent pumpkin lattes go hand in hand with dry skin, red noses, and chapped lips. While a humidifier in your bedroom at night will work wonders to prevent winter-induced dehydration, there are also a few tweaks that you can make to your beauty routine that will leave you glowing and radiant on even the coldest days!

No. 1: Ditch Your Drying Cleanser
A simple swap of your summer cleanser for something a little more nourishing will go a long way to preventing flaky, dry skin. Proper cleansing is the foundation of any successful beauty ritual. And though the main goal is to remove dulling, pore-clogging residue, it’s also vital to avoid stripping the skin of its protective lipid layer. That squeaky clean feel is a sign that you’ve gone too far and could lead to increased redness, irritation, and infection. So ditch the soap in favor of something a little silkier. Cleansing balms and oils are wonderful options when the temperature drops!

No. 2: Mist Skin With Abandon
If dry skin has you down, it’s time to stop avoiding hydrating mists. A mist can add much needed moisture throughout your beauty routine. Try spritzing before applying serums, after applying serums, and throughout the day when skin starts feeling tight and itchy. Seek out formulas with hydrating elements, including oils, aloe vera, and hyaluronic acid and avoid over-priced water sprays at the drugstore. Mists that are comprised of water alone actually lead to greater dehydration by pulling water from the skin as they evaporate.

No. 3: Up The Ante With Your Daily Moisturizer
Winter is not the time to skimp on moisture! Though it may seem counterintuitive, drying out your delicate complexion can exacerbate conditions like acne. Don’t be afraid to trade in your lighter moisturizers for richer creams and balms. Seek out hydrating oils, like avocado, pomegranate, and rosehip, and nourishing butters, like shea and mango. Applying ample moisture day and night is key to enjoying a flake-free winter!

No. 4: Consider Layering Facial Oil Over Moisturizer
While it may seem decadent, try patting 3-4 drops of your favorite facial oil onto your cheeks, nose, and forehead after applying your moisturizer. Facial oils seal in the hydrating benefits of your moisturizer and prevent essential water from evaporating from the skin. More importantly, oils impart a lit-from-within radiance. If you’ve shunned oils in the past, there is no better time than winter to give them a chance!

No. 5: Don’t Forget Delicate Eyes and Lips
You may begin to notice that the area around your eyes is starting to feel dry and crepey and that your lips are starting to crack. Fear not, there are plenty of hydrating remedies available to you. Seek out ultra-comforting, cushy balms for both your eyes and lips!

Shelves of materials fill the Bryr studio—stacks of wooden bases, neat lines of yellow foot-shaped lasts, drawers of laces, jars of shoe oil, manila folders full of patterns, a fireplace filled with books. In the thick of it all: the workstation, topped with tools and leather scraps.

Bryr Studio

Then there are the clogs, rows and rows of them. There are the classic clogs, open-toe sandals, pairs with cut-outs, and some that edge the line between clog and boot. Some are experiments in neon and laces.

The Bryr clog is a mix of feminine and boyish. It’s fun and easygoing—much like Isobel Schofield, founder of Bryr.

Isobel Schofield, founder of Bryr, at work

Schofield founded Bryr Studios in 2012. After an 18-year career working in fashion design for companies like Velvet, Splendid, and American Eagle Outfitters, she finally reached the point where she felt the need to do something for herself. “It was a pretty crazy journey,” Schofield says. “I’d had a really amazing career going up the ladder, but I’d kind of just become really burnt out on design. I wasn’t connecting to creativity anymore. It wasn’t necessarily the place, it was more like the point in my career.”

So she decided to make the leap and leave the corporate world—but not without a few conditions. “I gave myself a set of rules,” she says. “I wanted to spend time with family, I wanted to stop buying stuff, and I wanted to tap into my creativity.”

For Schofield, achieving a state of flow—positive energy, focus and fully immersing herself in creative work—was one of her main goals. With a set of rules but no set plan, Schofield embarked on what she dubbed as a creative sabbatical. She found a piece of inspiration at a small boutique in New York. “I had bought a pair of clogs in New York in a store, and I’d looked at the bottom, and it said ‘Made In America.’ I knew from working in the industry that that was really unusual.”

She immediately hopped online to investigate, and an impromptu email led to an apprenticeship. After a few weeks, she returned to Brooklyn and launched Bryr. Eventually, she packed up her stuff, started a cross-country trip to the West Coast, and made her way to San Francisco—though, as she tells me, her original destination was Portland.

For Schofield, the transition from corporate design to launching her own business was all about trial and error. She took additional shoemaking courses, and her background in sculpture and fashion helped as she developed the patterns for each shoe. She searched high and low for the right materials and tools, and she learned how to structure her days. “There’s a million things that go on in the back end,” she says.

These days, Schofield works out of a Victorian in Cole Valley, where she makes each clog by hand. She is methodical, working stage by stage: the leather cutting, the stapling, fitting the lasts in the shoes, making sure each pair properly dries.

She’s equally meticulous about the materials used for the clogs. “I try to use the best materials I can use,” Schofield says. “That’s my recipe for it—simple and beautiful materials that can stand on their own.”

While most clogs use pinewood soles, the base of a Bryr clog is made of linden wood, sourced from a town in Spain with a history in shoemaking. The linden wood sole is pale and extra soft, with a slight bowl shape to hold the shape of the foot. Schofield sources her leather from a tannery in Napa. For most of her clogs, she uses an oiled leather that’s both supple and durable, often used for making saddles and motorcycle bags.

“What’s really great is that I can buy leather in small amounts, so I can kind of do a lot of different, fun things,” Schofield says. It’s this small batch mentality—not having to commit to huge orders and sit on inventory—that keeps her constantly innovating. She likes to experiment, whether it’s using a bright neon or a shimmer-printed leather or adding an ankle strap to create a new silhouette. Schofield also works with independent boutiques to make exclusive collaborations, too.

“I think that some really exciting things are happening right now in terms of small business,” Schofield says. “We’re really nimble, and we can move really fast.”

Schofield gives this advice to aspiring small business owners: “Whatever you’re going to do, just try and do it as well as you can possibly do it,” she says. “Take a small business class, because having that community is amazing. And save, save, save.”

As for the future of Bryr, Schofield eventually wants to see the brand expand into a design-led studio, but for now, “it’s all slow and steady, and being responsive,” she says. “To be a Bay Area brand and give back to the community, that would be my dream.”

]]>http://www.handfulofsalt.com/noticed-bryr/feed/0Pick of the Week: The Piano, Reimaginedhttp://www.handfulofsalt.com/pick-week-piano-reimagined/
http://www.handfulofsalt.com/pick-week-piano-reimagined/#commentsSun, 08 Feb 2015 19:03:09 +0000http://www.handfulofsalt.com/?p=26177By Regina Connell. Most of what I hear about pianos nowadays is about the demise of the home piano, a sad casualty to iPad-enabled keyboards, synthesizers, and a preference among parents to have their kids involved in group activities that … Continue reading →

Most of what I hear about pianos nowadays is about the demise of the home piano, a sad casualty to iPad-enabled keyboards, synthesizers, and a preference among parents to have their kids involved in group activities that will prove to colleges that they are socialized team players, not scary solitary introverts who can plink out a few tunes on their old upright.

But the global market for pianos is still robust, thanks to places like China, where newly wealthy parents seem to have a bit more sway over kids.

The grand piano, however, is a completely different creature. It never seemed to go out of style, whether as an instrument or as a piece of sculpture. But as a piece of sculpture, it didn’t really seem to evolve a great deal. Until now.

The sleek new lines of the Boganyi

When I first saw this in Dezeen, my eyes almost swept over it, having dismissed it as some yacht-like object for a Russian oligarch or a concept car out of Italy (for the same guy, no doubt). But then, I looked again.

It was the Bogányi Grand Piano. And it’s not just another piece of CAD-created eye candy. Rather than having been a visual design project, it came out of the desire to improve the quality of the sound of the piano. And it is the most gorgeous thing I’ve seen in a while.

The Boganyi Piano on stage

Who on earth would have the guts to take on the grand piano? A grand pianist. Gergely Bogányi is a Hungarian pianist, among the best in the world. He had a simple dream: to have a piano that made a richer, more powerful, more harmonious sound.

A seat design integrated with the piano

The redesign of the piano started with the core of the instrument: the way in which sound is made. In a traditional grand piano, when a player hits one of the 88 keys, it triggers a hammer to hit a corresponding string that vibrates to produce the desired note.

Piano detail

Instead, the piano employs unique composite soundboard—the area that the strings vibrate against—within a modified iron and wood frame. His piano also features a redesigned agraffe system of guides for the strings at the tuning-pin end, which ensure the correct height and determine the length of each string.

Chief constructor Attila Bolega

Everything was rethought. ”The piano features over 18,000 parts, and we looked into every area possible to enhance the quality of sound,” Bogányi said. The soundboard is designed to be more resistant to environmental conditions such as humidity or dryness, so the instrument will hold its tune for longer.

Then there’s the shape, which was optimized to help transmit sounds with higher efficiency and clarity.

Gergely Boganyi

“For years, I have played with a sound in my head, different to that which I was playing. It was always in another dimension different from the actual sound coming from the piano. Somehow, it was a more beautiful, harmonious, flowing sound. I understood this might have been the same with J.S. Bach, Beethoven, and Franz Liszt. To the extent that Liszt, for example, worked with the piano manufactures at the time to modify and improve the sound to match the expectations he had in his mind. In those days, these famous composers made a difference and some strides in the traditional piano design. Today, I have taken the same approach. I felt passionately and was intrigued to find out how I could make a difference. How could I bridge the gap between the ‘miraculous’ sound in my head and that of the sound I was hearing?”

He developed the piano in a collaboration between the pianist and a team of Hungarian piano makers and craftsmen. ”We experimented through some 8,000 team engineering hours with modern materials, particularly with the soundboard, searching for new technical solutions, constantly analyzing the derived new spectre of sound,” said Bogányi.

Happy 2015 AKA the year that Marty McFly travels to in Back to the Future 2! While we don’t yet have flying cars (that weknowof, guys) and the cool kids aren’t wearing their pants inside out or going to see Jaws 19, there are hoverboards (seriously!), and self-driving cars, and soup still exists! So things are looking pretty good so far… This is not to say that soup is a consolation prize (though it’s pretty consoling as far as foods go). So often we think of soup as boring—a backup meal in a pinch, a necessity on soul-freezing winter days. But when you actually get your hands on a bowl that’s delicious and homemade and full of wonderful things, you remember, “RIGHT. Soup is GREAT. I and my soup-scorning ways have been fools! How COULD I forget how toasty, how satisfying, how surprising, how tasty soup can be.” (We try not to say this aloud each time because we like our friends, we want them to go out in public and eat soup with us.)

This soup is one of those Ah-Ha! soups we’re talking about. Hearty vegetables, leafy greens, comforting broth, all over some nice hunks of bread: it’s so good and filling and supremely unfussy. Top it off with a drizzle of olive oil and some grated cheese and you’ve got yourself a deal. (Isn’t that what makes a deal a deal? Olive oil and cheese? We’re pretty sure any and all government documents, treaties, accords, marriage licenses, and so forth in history have only been binding when signed in olive oil and cheese. No? Hmm…)

The secret to making this and so many other soups more than the equivalent of a hot water bottle in your stomach is something you might not expect: the rind of Parmesan cheese. Yes, good broth is really important, as are good ingredients, but adding the cheese rind does amazing, salty, savory glorious things that are hard to describe when you’re eating other than, “Mmm.” Never throw away the cheese rind from a piece of Parmesan. Just toss it in a ziplock bag and put it in your fridge or freezer. This doesn’t work with just any cheese, though. Lots of cheeses have rinds that are just wax so don’t throw just any old rind into your soup or you’ll end up with something weird instead of something wonderful.

Another thing on our ingredient list that might have you raising an eyebrow is the vinegar, but it’s important. It’s just a splash and it gives balance to the flavors in the soup. A one-note soup is much less interesting and satisfying than something with more depth. Together with the cheese rind, a little vinegar makes this soup mouthwatering: saltiness and bit of acidity are key…

For the rest of the post, the recipe, and oh so much more Lee & Lou click here.

]]>http://www.handfulofsalt.com/lee-lou-sunday-winter-greens-soup/feed/0Noticed: 2015 Good Food Award Winnershttp://www.handfulofsalt.com/noticed-2015-good-food-award-winners/
http://www.handfulofsalt.com/noticed-2015-good-food-award-winners/#commentsTue, 03 Feb 2015 05:18:49 +0000http://www.handfulofsalt.com/?p=26130By Regina Connell. The Good Food Awards were held a couple of weeks back in San Francisco: new venue, a new category (honeys), and 1462 entrants from 50 states. It’s a great sign that these awards are blowing up. Also … Continue reading →

The Good Food Awards were held a couple of weeks back in San Francisco: new venue, a new category (honeys), and 1462 entrants from 50 states. It’s a great sign that these awards are blowing up.

espresso and milk, image courtesy of Lee and Lou Cook

Also inspiring was the massive turnout at the Good Foods Mercantile, which connected sellers of Good Food to commercial/wholesale buyers of Good Food. Dubbed the UnTradeshow, it ran at the same time as the mammoth San Francisco fancy food show. By offering the same sized booths to everyone, a start time conducive to arriving well-rested, and booth fees at a fraction of the price other trade shows charge, Sarah Weiner and her team created “the Good Food Movement’s answer to building commerce and community.” It helps that it also includes smart programming with the goal of making it easier for those who want to carry tasty, authentic, responsible food to do so. Hopefully, we’ll all be seeing more of this food on our grocery shelves… and not just at Whole Foods.

The next Good Food Mercantile will be held in New York at the end of June 2015 to coincide with the Summer Fancy Food Show.

Without further ado, I offer you the following for inclusion in your shopping lists.